Instagram / @daviddiez
Ignorance is bliss, at least until someone shows you the drone footage and you find out that you were within literal inches of being attacked by a shark. That’s exactly what happened to this chick down in Florida who was snorkeling off of West Palm Beach.
Her boyfriend was filming her with a drone as she lay swimming on her back in a bikini, blissfully unaware that a 5-foot blacktip shark was swimming up to her with the intention to strike. The footage has since gone viral after being posted to Instagram, leaving people in complete disbelief at how close she was to being attacked by that shark. There are some theories on why the blacktip shark pussed out at the last second but we can get to those below. First, let’s watch this chick come within inches of getting bitten by a blacktip shark:
Over on GrindTV.com, they suspect the reason the shark came so close to biting here before tucking tail and hauling ass out of there is the fins. They believe that the shark mistook her fins for fish because of the poor visibility of the water and couldn’t make out the shape of the woman until it got right up there and tried to bite.
Here’s the video’s description from Instagram that seems to mirror that:
So this happened yesterday! While filming my girlfriend @helenpalacios with my drone a shark came close to tasting her. What I think happened was that the shark confused her fins for a fish, but then as soon as it realized it was a human it quickly backed off. The poor water visibility confused the shark. This is how most shark attacks happen in Florida specially this time of year when sharks like the blacktip are migrating through the Florida coast following schools of fish. Sharks aren’t man eaters they’re just carnivores who make mistakes like we do. Helen and I will continue to explore our beautiful ocean.
The poor visibility in that green water would certainly explain why the shark boogied on out of there so quickly. It’s often speculated that the reason so many surfers are bitten by sharks on the East Coast of Florida is because of the poor visibility caused by the churning of the waves. The water’s flat in this instance, but it is murky and green, so I’ll buy this explanation for now.